Sympathetic multiculturalists needed immediately

The wife of a Saudi Prince is spending tonight in a Beantown slammer before her arraignment Friday. Don’t get too excited, royalty junkies. Saudi kings for decades have been very busy Bedouins, so the Kingdom is loaded with princes.

The now-imprisoned princess was allegedly threatening and holding the passports of a couple of her female domestic workers (one in each of her houses) while they worked for $300/month. Nice.

One day early

Newton's St. Ignatius Church has been sold and will become a sausage emporium serving Boston College.

Words to ponder on this day

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

"Woman, behold your son!" "Behold your mother!"

"I thirst!"

"Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

"It is finished!"

"Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit."

Good company

You wouldn't make up a coincidence as striking as this.

New members of the vast right-wing conspiracy?

In today's Boston Globe Robert Kuttner gets caught between the rapidly changing position of the left and a newspaper deadline. His OpEd column today entitled “Exposing pro-life zealotry” reflects yesterday's party line:

"While most Americans believe in God and attend church, synagogue, or mosque, few welcome the busybody behavior of the religious right, most recently in its morbid embrace of Terri Schiavo."

Question: Bob, does the religious right of pro-life zealots include not only John Paul II and the US Catholic Bishops, but now also Jesse Jackson and Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice?

Globe headline today by Kojo Annan

The Globe headline today reads “Report clears UN chief of corruption allegations”.

You won’t agree if you read the article. It is far more accurate than the headline suggests.

One other point: Oil-for-food is a $10 BILLION scandal, not $10M as suggested. Ten billion is roughly the amount of kickbacks that came to Saddam Hussein via the program.

And of course it is pure coincidence the firm contracted as the inspector for this same uncorrupted UN program hired Kofi’s 22-year old son fresh from college as a 6-figure traveling “consultant”. Uh huh. That is the most laughable claim since the era of Slick Willie.

A thought-provoking article on Schiavo

In the Crimson:

"Little attention has been paid to the more than twenty major disability rights organizations firmly supporting Schiavo's right to nutrition and hydration."

Read the whole superb thing. Via Power Line.

Kudos

Let me call attention to two outstanding articles in Sunday's Boston Globe that deserve to be read. First Frida Ghitis takes an objective look at the perverse charade that is the UN Human Rights Commission, and finds it an insult to the victims. After bemoaning the inclusion of Sudan and Mugabe's Zimbabwe on the commission she writes:

Monarchs, despots, and dictators of all stripes will contribute to the commission's work, with regime representatives from such paragons of human rights as Cuba, Nepal, Egypt, Pakistan, Swaziland, Bhutan, and China, among others, helping craft the agenda to defend human rights and individual freedoms around the world.

Oh, yes. We could hardly be in better hands.

Second, the Globe's own reporters cover the dilemma faced by Sinn Fein in the face of the dwindling support for the IRA. They blame the end of the latest negotiation squarely on Ian Paisley, a judgment which is probably not beyond dispute (personally I cannot but see Gerry Adams and Paisley as two sides of the same coin; both being utter bastards who deserve to spend eternity in each other's company). I hope the Globe keeps this coverage going in the months ahead.

Let them eat crow

AFP Photo

One day after George W Bush's Inaugural address, Peter Canellos wrote in the Boston Globe concerning Bush's rhetoric of assisting the spread of freedom around the world:

"Ultimately, Bush's inaugural address will be either validated or subsumed by the events that follow."

I agreed with Canellos at the time. Since that day we have seen:

-A successful democratic election in Iraq
-The orange revolution in the Ukraine
-Egypt announcing that it will allow multi-party elections
-Municipal elections in, of all places, Saudi Arabia
-Peaceful rebellion against Syrian occupation in Lebanon
-Partial Syrian withdrawl from Lebanon, and pressure for more
-An authoritarian government fleeing in Kyrgyzstan
-Pressure on an authoritarian government in Belarus

An astounding set of events for just 3 months since Bush's speech!

So how much credit does W get for this in Canellos' writing during these last 3 months? Not much. If you parse his articles you will find slight mention of it, usually with ample contradiction by others. One article damns Bush with faint praise, but by and large, his writing about Bush continues to paint Bush as inflexible, unthinking, overconfident, and in a word, un-nuanced. See this, this, and this.

Crow is being served as ordered, but some folks seem to have lost their appetite.

Out of Town News

Today's Globe OpEd cartoon is certainly not from Morrissey Boulevard. Rather, it originates from Seattle -- hardly a hotbed of the religious right, but far enough away from the Cambridge fever swamps so that the "Summers Follies" of the Harvard faculty can be seen from a broader perspective.

Eating PC: Harvard swaps "Lucky Charms" for "Marshmallow Mateys"

In yet anonther amazing story of PC run wild in Cambridge (or more likely obliviousness to basic principles of marketing), the dining service at Harvard has now replaced nationally branded and heavily sugared breakfast cerals with more healthful but unknown brands($$$). This has created the formation of a protest student group on TheFaceBook. I am not making this up. Today's Globe reports:

"Angry cereal fans are lashing out after Harvard University cleared its dining halls this school year of brand-name cereals, such as Fruit Loops and Cap'n Crunch, and swapped them for less expensive, apparently healthier options like Tootie Fruities and Colossal Crunch."

The folks at the B school could have told them something like this would happen. Hopefully president Summers will step in before this soggy situation gets out of hand.

Stop! You're killing me!

Undergraduate degree: $170,000
Graduate degree: $20,000 (Thanks, Uncle Sam!)
Scot Lehigh poking fun at the academy: Priceless!

The Summers saga is a story that keeps on giving...and giving.

Spinning Terri Schiavo before she's in her grave

It is interesting to see that the media, especially the more liberal organs of the media, are already trying to impart anti-Bush spin to the sad case of Terri Schiavo. The story was the first one reported this morning on the BBC World Service World Update program. Both the BBC announcer, Dan Damon, and and the guest speaker former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich stated very clearly that the intervention by President Bush in the case could "backfire" against the Republicans. I doubt it. We have heard the media throwing out that exact story line before within the last year in another prominent case where it was obvious that the opposite was true – a fact widely admitted only post election.

Interesting that the Beebe chose Robert Reich, an economist, to speak about a matter that involves the law and medical ethics. Perhaps most Democrats are keeping a low profile on this issue, which may be another and more reliable indication that the Beebe's slant to this story is buncomb. You can listen to the BBC interview here.

Today's Boston Globe has a much more interesting story about what it describes as an uneasy alliance between a disabled rights group and Republicans. It's worth reading. Another fact that remains unreported it seems is the origin of Bush's term "culture of life". Have we perhaps heard that used once or twice before? If I'm not mistaken the most prominent person to use that term frequently in the last decade is coincidentally also seriously disabled. He's a very old man with Parkinson's disease who lives in Rome.

John McCain was snookered

John Fund has an amazing story at OpinionJournal about the development of McCain-Feingold with the help of a few deep pockets provided by liberal foundations who in turn funded sympathetic organs within the media (such as NPR) to create buzz. Moneygraph:

"A study last month by the Political Money Line, a nonpartisan Web site dealing with campaign funding issues, found that of the $140 million spent to directly promote liberal campaign reform in the last decade, a full $123 million came from just eight liberal foundations. "

Read the whole thing.

Summers visit brings down the curtain on Harvard theatrical group

Cambridge, March 20 – After 110 years, a Harvard theatrical group will vacate its Holyoke Street theatre on the campus immediately following a matinee performance attended by Harvard president Lawrence Summers. As the ribald performance ended a cast member sadly announced that this would be their final performance in the campus theatre, which will be fumigated, razed, and replaced. They plan to continue their productions elsewhere in Cambridge for at least 2 more years.

The group is notorious for its questionable commitment to gender diversity and good taste. Their 157 annual productions take turns doling out offense to gays, Native Americans, Asians, Mexicans, illiterate southerners, tenured Harvard faculty, Yale, the Harvard Business School, and Wellesley undergrads.


Innate ability? Humbug!

Many professors of the faculty of arts and sciences are believed to loath the organization and its artistic work, but in Harvard’s decentralized structure they have been unable to purge the campus of the group or of its questionable cultural contributions. The organization’s disrespect for the notion of diversity is startling even by Harvard standards. They have no designated diversity officer or formal program for inclusiveness. There are rumors of archaic hazing rituals as well. Here are some statistics:

Shows produced: 157
Performances: 1,864
Cast members (male): 1,953
Cast members (female): 0

The group’s only line of defense is that a plurality of cast members is known to prefer female understudies. Recently in an effort to tone up its image, the group has diversified its business and artistic management organizations, but it has steadfastly refused to put women in front of the footlights.


A lame attempt to show diversity

“We have a Taliban-like organization right here” said one Cambridge protester who identified herself as Dianne Ferratwinkie. “You could find many women even in Cambridge with better looking legs than those fellows, or at least better than a few of them…well certainly better than that fat one on the left.”

“Oh look", said another exasperated dissenter, “there is no reason why this group should block an opportunity for college women to run around in skimpy outfits, dance in public, and flaunt their figures. When you get 3 or 4 standard deviations above the mean in that field, I think you will find the applicant pool is chockablock full of women and that very few men are able to maintain the level of intensity it takes for the cream to rise to the top. We might prefer to attribute this to socialization, but I think until we do more study, we have to at least admit the possibility that innate differences may also play a role.”

Summers left the theatre quietly and did not confront any protesters, but reportedly smiled at several inappropriate jokes during the performance.


Reveling for the final time in their fetid ancient theatre

Krauthammer

These remarks about the European left seem to fit the climate among the academic left as well; concerning the gap between a perceived "discrimination against women and minorities" in the presence of the very opposite condition, and the intellectual intolerance in university faculties for even the mention of ideas outside a narrow range of views. He writes in the WaPo:

"A leftist judge in Spain orders the arrest of a pathetic, near-senile Gen. Augusto Pinochet eight years after he's left office, and becomes a human rights hero -- a classic example of the left morally grandstanding in the name of victims of dictatorships long gone. Yet for the victims of contemporary monsters still actively killing and oppressing -- Khomeini and his successors, the Assads of Syria and, until yesterday, Hussein and his sons -- nothing. No sympathy. No action. Indeed, virulent hostility to America's courageous and dangerous attempt at rescue. "

Get the picture?

Getting an earful about the IRA

Here is the photo that appeared in today's Boston Globe on page A25. Power Line has apt comments on the day's events.

You'll never do lunch in this town again

So Washington must seem to lonely Gerry Adams. Today's Boston Globe has the story of Ted Kennedy's meeting with the McCartney sisters and a photo of the senator walking with them near the Capitol. The junior senator from New York also met the McCartneys. The photo is not online. Too bad.

This story and picture is discreetly run on page 25 of the Globe. Why? Perhaps all that "Irish stuff" only interests people one day a year. What? Today is St Patrick's day? Well a happy day to one and all then!

It appears from a Globe editorial that Adams will at least be able to meet with a few Massachusetts congressmen, including Michael O'Capuano. That is not highly distinguished company, Gerry. Sharing the East Room of the White House with Slick Willie is much nicer, isn't it? Well,it does beat standing on the Mall and asking for spare change.

Lately cleansed of yet another Clinton legacy

Simon Jenkins writes in the London Times of the new pariah status of Gerry Adams:

When the White House first invited Sinn Fein to its party ten years ago, I suggested to a presidential aide that this would seem odd to many Britons. Mr Adams was manifestly a major force within the Provisional IRA. His organisation had killed some three thousand Britons and tried to wipe out the entire British Cabinet, not once but twice. To put it mildly he was hardly fit to be a bosom pal of a president. Besides, delicate peace negotiations were under way between John Major and the paramilitaries.

I received a long lecture in realpolitik. This word terrorist should not be bandied about, said my friend. All oppressed peoples naturally turn to violence when politics fails them. Britain had mishandled Northern Ireland. Along with Iraq and Palestine, it was one of many troublespots which Bill Clinton would seek to resolve. Inviting Mr Adams to the White House was the strategy of engagement.

RTWT

Left in Nepal at 3

Yesterday's WSJ had a very touching, very human story on page 1 about a little boy left in Nepal at age 3 by hippie parents. You need a subscription to reach this, but read it if you can here or if not go find a paper copy and read it. It's a beautifully written story.

Summers rebuked

Larry Summers lost a vote of confidence yesterday by the Harvard Faculty of arts and sciences. The Globe story is here, but the Harvard Crimson is the only paper allowed within the meeting and their stories are here and here.

All that can be said about this sorry spectacle is that courage is in short supply in modern academia. Contrast the relatively uneducated but far wiser McCartney sisters of Belfast and their ilk worldwide, who are today standing up to real dictators and at great personal risk with this comfortable club of secure, well-off, and like-minded petty tyrants who chafe at the unconstraining leadership of Summers like spoiled children. Besides daring to speak his mind, Summers chief liability is his inability or unwillingness to stroke their large egos and schmooze them. Pathetic.

Sounding more thuggish by the day

While silent on the Summers saga (see below), today’s Boston Globe does have a couple items of interest.

On the McCartney sisters, IRA second-thug-in-command Martin McGuinness remarks with telling bluntness:

“The McCartneys need to be very careful. To step over that line, which is a very important line, into the world of party-political politics can do a huge disservice to their campaign.”

No doubt such a fine man as Marty has the ladies’ best interests at heart. But Marty, if intimidating the speech of these 5 courageous women doesn’t work for you in Belfast, you can move your lardy tush to Washington where regulating political speech seems to be a growing industry.

In the same Boston Globe James Carroll whines:

“I screech against the war so often that I sound like a broken record, even to myself.”

Then James goes on about the war and sounds once again like…a broken record. Except here:

“I look over the columns I have published in this week of the year over the past decade and a half. My pride in being Irish has been a subject, especially since the humane achievement of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 (''We pledge that we will, in good faith, work to ensure the success of each and every one of the arrangements to be established under this agreement.") But that was before the ancient grudge reasserted itself, London retook governing power over Northern Ireland, and the gangster-IRA, dropping the pretense of political struggle, showed itself fully for what it is. There is shame in being Irish this year.”

Gerry Adams and his bloody gang have shown they have no shame. The shame is associating with them. On the contrary, there is pride in being Irish this year, and it is being demonstrated by 5 women who have the courage to say “Enough!”

A story the Boston Globe seems to have missed...

Delivery of my paper copy of the Boston Globe has become a random event, but I don't see this story in the online Globe either. Go figure. The New York Times : fills in the gap:

"the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will consider a resolution of a lack of confidence in [Harvard president Larry Summers] at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday"

Kennedy snubs Sinn Fein

This story did not make Monday's Boston Globe except as an AP wire story. The story contains this little gem of a line:

And the IRA,in its latest attempt to defuse criticism of its members' involvement, announced last week it was willing to kill four people it considers responsible.

Or, as Don Vito Corleone might have put it: "How about if we just whack 4 of our own people and then agree to forget this whole thing ever happened?"

The Belfast Telegraph also notes the snub.

From the middle east to Belfast

President Bush has invited 5 sisters of the murdered Robert McCartney to visit the White House on St. Patrick ’s Day. Their brother had his throat cut recently in a crowded pub by some IRA men who then destroyed the evidence and promised (in their own special way, no doubt) to perform the same service on anyone who spoke to the police about what had happened. Apparently this killing was a somewhat impulsive act that culminated a long and ale-stoked argument. Unlike Al Qaeda, the IRA does not have a history of video-taping its throat-cutting or knee-capping rituals for our education. Too bad for us, but lucky for them.

This story in today’s Boston Globe reports that the IRA met with the 5 women and offered to shoot the murderers for them (what thoughtful and considerate men they are!). The sisters would have none of it. They are pursing justice through the police and the courts. Last Sunday's Globe profiled the women here.

These women have courageously put their own lives in jeopardy in order to promote the rule of law and the possibility of justice through law instead of through the mob in Northern Ireland. Honoring their courage is a worthy use of Bush’s office.

I hope he invites Ted Kennedy and John Kerry to the ceremony.

Deacon on Joan

Deacon of Power Line comments on Joan Vennochi's Tuesday column and catches her looking down her nose at the intelligence of the electorate:

"Vennochi's real question is whether the Democrats should nominate Clinton. For Vennochi, that question seems to turn on whether Clinton is likely to win. And it's here that the column turns incoherent because, like so many pro-Democratic analysts, the author tries to answer the question in a vacuum, as if no intelligent and reasonably informed electorate exists."

What's good for the goose...

An alert reader points to a possible but ever so slight inconsistency in the Globe's management taking such a hard line when Hiawatha Bray's blog mentioned presidential politics.

The dark side of secularism

James Carroll laments in today's Globe that the "separation of church and state" has come to mean the walling off of all religion from public activity:

Walling off the "sacred" from the "secular" has removed the faith from its rigorous partnership with reason, which is why, for example, so many mistakenly assume a contradiction between Genesis and Darwin. Otherwise well-educated religious people remain theologically illiterate, which is the ground of intolerance.

The Globe's editorial writers should listen to him. They preach that:

"Church leaders cannot expect religious doctrine to govern secular behavior."

Where is King Solomon when you really need him?

Oh Wise Judge and King,

Last week a family’s dog was electrocuted on a Boston street by a faulty power installation owned by NStar.

This week NStar offered them $200,000 compensation but they turned down the offer.

They are holding out for $740,000 which they say is the annual salary of NStar’s CEO.

So, your highness, is this a sign that the end is near, or is it the only effective way to limit the upward spiral of executive pay?

Danny, we hardly miss ye...

Dan Rather departs this week, which brings these words into my mind:

For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.

Conservative found in the Globe newsroom!

I have always enjoyed reading the Globe’s tech columnist, Hiawatha Bray. Hi used to be pretty amusing live on TV also, back when he was a guest on that old geek show “The Computer Chronicles”.

Now poor Hiawatha has got himself into a fix on account of his blogging. He made some uncomplimentary remarks about the Kerry campaign’s use of Vietnam as a centerpiece on his blog, which got him slapped on the wrist by the Globe. Bray posted no criticism of Kerry that was harsher than that uttered by the Kerry supporters in the Globe newsroom no doubt, but he did publish it outside the Globe and he does write for the paper, so I can sympathize with his employer’s plight as well. Bray’s right-of-center posts are chronicled quite thoroughly at an ultra-liberal website, MediaMatters.

It must be pretty lonely to be a Bush supporter over on Morrissey Boulevard. Take courage, Hiawatha. Your readers are waiting for your next story.

Yesterday’s Ombud article has this on the Bray story at the end of the column:

Blog report
Last November the Globe learned that technology reporter Hiawatha Bray was posting his political views on a web log. The editors warned him not to continue. Even with no explicit Globe rules at that point governing what's OK in the largely uncharted, semi-public/semi-private world of blogging, Bray's anti-Kerry and pro-Bush rhetoric was at odds with the impartiality expected of journalists. Bray agreed to stop.

End of story -- until last week, when a liberal online media watchdog group reported what Bray had written. That brought dozens of angry e-mails to this office; some said fire Bray.

Responds Baron: ''Mr. Bray is a technology reporter and did not cover the presidential campaign, other than a minor technology-related story on very rare occasions. That said, his blog postings were inappropriate and in violation of our standards." Thus, the November warning.

Said Bray: ''I don't cover politics for the Globe and figured that gave me a fair amount of leeway. I'm a lowly tech writer; who'd care what I thought about the election? Turns out, a lot of people did."

''I make no apology . . . for my opinions. But I do apologize for expressing them in a venue that might lead some to suppose that my employers share them."

Context , Please

Hugh Hewitt has posted his email correspondence from Barbara Demick, the author of the LA Times/Boston Globe interview with a North Korean "businessman". Her answers (and his questions) provide a good context for the newspaper story and are here.

Recycled Excrement

Without explanation, Sunday’s Boston Globe ran a 3-day-old and controversial article recycled from the LA Times. It is about North Korea and documents an interview in Beijing with a North Korean “businessman with close ties to the government” (surprise!). This article's uncritical repetition of the North Korean Party Line has caused quite a stir since it appeared in the LA Times last Thursday. See Power Line here and here, and Hugh Hewitt here. This is my favorite little quote from the piece:

He said Americans have a wrongheaded notion that North Koreans are unhappy with the system of government under leader Kim Jong Il. ''We Asians are traditional people," he said. ''We prefer to have a benevolent father leader." He also said US criticism of North Korea's record on human rights was unfair and hypocritical. The State Department in its annual human rights report characterized North Korea's record as ''extremely poor." It said that 150,000 to 200,000 people are in detention camps for political reasons and that there continued to be reports of extrajudicial killings and disappearances. ''Is there any country where there is a 100 percent guarantee of human rights? Certainly not the United States," he said. ''There is a question of what is a political prisoner. Maybe these people are not political prisoners, but social agitators."

Why, pray tell, did the Globe decide that we in Boston needed to be subjected to this piece of purest excrement that is correctly described as one that could have been penned by Walter Duranty? Did they need to recycle something from another publication to fill the space? Was it media solidarity with their sister NY Times Corporation publication? A way to say “in your face” to those who were offended by the LA Times article? I can only guess.

However if they are going to proceed along this line, I have some suggestions for pieces in a similar vein they could run in future Sunday Globes:

The soft side of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness

Pinochet shows tenderness with neighborhood teens

Bomber says that Beslan village was over-run with too many children

Congolese war-lord says coked boys are his happiest soldiers

Islamic slaveholder speaks his mind about how much he taught his charges

Al Axa Martyrs Brigade explains that Israeli teenagers will be happier when dead

Nazi ex-pat believes that Dr. Josef Mengele was a "misunderstood humanitarian"

A Janjiweed freedom fighter insists that Darfur women really ask for it

It is a far, far better blog I go to...

Have you discovered Iowahawk? If not, then please remember me, reader, as you pass from this blog to a far better one. Iowahawk is like a smart munition that skewers with pinpoint precision the absurdities of our media-soaked conventional wisdom. Protect yourself by putting down any hot drinks before you read him as he dissects:

Easongate: What happens in Davos, Stays in Davos
Democratic Party Soul-searchers: 13th Floor Elevator
Supreme Court Hubris: Court Backs 3-Oxen Dowries
Midwestern-style Election Fraud: Wisconsin, Ho!

And his all-time classic on the sorry spectacle that is Massachusetts’ senior Senator: It Is Finally Time To Exit The Oldsmobile

Have a good life out there, but please come back and visit some time.

Gillette: The real rest of the story

Apparently the Milton Academy boys hockey team is not the only group in town that is willing to overlook a lack of credentials in someone who is willing to perform a service they really really want. From today's Globe Letters to the Editor is an item entitled Writer's Credentials Questioned. An understatement. The letter follows:

REGARDING JACK Falvey's Feb. 14 op-ed article 'Gillette: the rest of the story':

The Globe identified Falvey as a ''former Gillette executive."

I'd like to set the record straight. Falvey was a sales training manager, not an executive, who worked for Gillette for six years at its South Boston manufacturing center, not its corporate headquarters. Falvey's employment was terminated 27 years ago in 1978.

I find it inconceivable that the Globe would give such prominent op-ed space, and the attendant credibility, to an individual who worked for Gillette for a very brief period of time in a lower-level management position nearly three decades ago. His ''opinions" on what senior executives were thinking, and his totally unfounded assertions as to what Procter & Gamble might do with Gillette's most important and advanced blade and razor factory and its global engineering and technology center are unfounded and untrue.

The Globe serves neither its overall readership nor our employees and former executives by providing a forum to someone who is so clearly unqualified to offer any credible opinion about Gillette.

MICHAEL COWHIG
President
Global technical and manufacturing
Gillette Co.
Boston

A Newbie

Tonight I spent quite a bit of time reading a brand new blog started by a lawyer and former Jesuit who is now retired in Maine. It looks like he started it today. I don’t agree with much or even most of what he writes, but I do agree with much of it….so his new blog made a pretty interesting evening read for me. I am happy to provide him with its first link here. Welcome to blogging, Paul Kelly. Stick with it. Blogs are a marathon run, not a sprint.

Another day, another Globe

Is that a Blog you’re reading or are you just glad to see me?
Today’s Globe front page teased with a pointer to an article about Blogs. Too bad that the article is about “confessional” blogs, where people anonymously report their sins and failings. Apparently some of these sites get heavy traffic. I found the blog reported in the Globe very unappealing. However, it’s good to know that somebody is having success with confession these days. The Catholic Church certainly is not. Maybe they could try outsourcing.

Summers Here Again
Also in today’s Globe Robert Kuttner grades Larry Summers’ now-famous remarks with a gentlemen’s C+. Kuttner’s essay would rate a grade far lower. Larry does better winging it verbally than Bobby does in writing.

Kuttner tries to be witty, but really does not address Larry’s points. I’ll give just 2 examples:

“You also note the lack of white men in the NBA. Do you really mean this as a serious analogy to under-representation of women in the sciences?”

As Larry’s explained quite clearly, this was just to point out that there are many occurrences of under-representation which do not concern the diversity-obsessed. Only certain cases do. Indeed.

What's missing is an empirical discussion of the immense gains women have in fact made in the past three decades as barriers have fallen and expectations changed. Women PhDs went from 0.6 percent to 17.3 percent in engineering, 2.9 to 15.5 percent in physics, 2.3 to 22.8 percent in computer science, 7.6 to 29.0 percent in math, and so on. This trend suggests that institutional factors are far more an influence than innate ability. If there are serious innate differences, how do you explain this remarkable shift?

Duh. This was not the question, Bobby. Summers addressed the question of why these higher graduation rates of women such fields were not being reflected in equivalent rates of female participation in leadership positions within academia and other professions.

I suggest a remedial class in rhetoric for you next term, Mr. Kuttner.

My son rightly takes me to task for not having mentioned Cathy Young’s much better column on the Summers brouhaha here. She says, “Summers also touched feminism's third rail: biological differences between the sexes.” Indeed the whole direction of US law for decades has been to make the law oblivious to this, without much thought given to when and why it would make sense to discard vs. retain such recognition. I’m way out of my field here, though.

Honorable Mention
Commenting on an unfortunate incident in a local prep school yesterday Joan Vennochi said this:

"Many believe that oral sex is not 'real' sex, a notion shared by one former US president."

Thanks for the honesty, Joan.